


Low Battery Blues

by destielonfire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, M/M, Misunderstandings, Prompt Fill, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 12:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8143855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destielonfire/pseuds/destielonfire
Summary: Wherein a dead phone battery ruins an otherwise perfectly good and well-intended joke and causes Cas to think Dean broke up with him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt fill fic for an anon ask on tumblr. The prompt is:Imagine that person A decides to send person B a picture of themselves next to a funny statue/really weird stuffed animal/the world’s most beautiful chocolate cake/whatever else with the caption “im leaving you i found someone else” thinking person B would find it hilarious, except they send the caption before the picture and the signal is bad so person B doesn’t see the picture, just the caption, and they start crying.
> 
> I'd like to thank [Shannon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Shannon_Kind/pseuds/Shannon_Kind) and [Tatum](http://totumd97.tumblr.com/) for being my beta readers! Also, apologies if you're experiencing déjà vu but I had to repost this fic due to issues with AO3.

“Hurry up, Sammy, I’m starting to feel like a douche standing next to this guy,” Dean said as he struggled to keep his ridiculously cheesy pose.

“I’m _trying_ to, Dean, but your phone keeps giving me a ‘battery low’ warning that gets in the way,” Sam grumbled. “Ah, wait. Okay…got it!”

Dean relaxed from his pose, stepping away from the large sculpture of Apollo and holding his hand out to get his cell phone back from Sam.

“Quick, I wanna send this picture to Cas before my battery dies.”

Sam handed the phone to him with a teasing smile on his face. “You know you two are really gross, right?”

Dean went into the messaging system he always used with Cas and started typing. “You know we only do that to annoy you, right? We’re not nearly as into PDA when you’re not around.”

He snickered at the offended look on Sam’s face at the bald-faced lie. They’d only been dating for a few months, and were still firmly in the ‘can’t keep my hands off you for more than a minute’ honeymoon period of their relationship.

Dean had met Cas in his second year psychology class, which was mandatory, even though Dean was an engineering student, and he was pretty sure cars didn’t need therapy. But he couldn’t begrudge having to take the class since it led him to Cas. Castiel Novak, theology major, youngest of five brothers and sisters, and – if you asked Dean – probably the primary reason the sun rose in the morning. Okay, he would never say that out loud, but he was head over heels for the guy and he was pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

They’d become friends after they were assigned a project together, discovering that they actually had some mutual friends such as Charlie Bradbury, CompSci major, and Kevin Tran, pre-med student. For a little while, they’d danced around each other, unsure about the other’s feelings. But with a little help from their mutual friends and Cas’s most infuriating brother Gabriel, who’d somehow all figured out that Dean and Cas liked each other even before they realized it themselves, they ended up being tricked into going a date. By the end of the evening, they were making out on Dean’s dorm room couch, and from that moment on they’d been inseparable.

This trip actually marked the first time they’d been apart from each other for more than a weekend, and Dean was experiencing Cas Withdrawal SyndromeTM already. But he’d promised Sam years ago that he would take him on a trip with just the two of them as a high school graduation present, and he was actually enjoying it a lot. Just Sam and him and his baby, spending three weeks together in the Midwest going from motel to motel and doing whatever they felt like doing.

Today was a good example of the total randomness of their activities. They’d been driving through a small town in Utah when Sam had noticed the Greco-Roman museum that was inexplicably situated between the town library and a flower shop. Sam had dragged Dean inside, and they’d soon discovered that the museum was basically a collection of replicas, which made sense. It wasn’t like a museum in Smalltown, USA would have actual genuine Greco-Roman artefacts lying around. Still, the replicas were of a fairly good quality, and Sam seemed happy enough, so Dean just let him have his fun.

But then he’d noticed the pièce de résistance of the entire collection - a large statue of a naked Apollo sporting an impressive set of abs – and a plan had immediately formed in his head. He hadn’t messaged or called Cas in the last two days and he was in a teasing mood.

And now, his plan was put into action.

_Me: Hey, it’s been fun these past few months, but I’m leaving you. I’ve met someone who’s absolutely divine._

Just as Dean hit send, his screen started to dim, and the ‘battery low’ warning flashed on his screen. He had 1% left. He quickly hurried to attach the picture of him standing next to the sculpture to a follow-up message. A second after he hit send, his screen went black as his battery gave up the ghost.

Sure that the message had reached its destination, Dean pocketed his phone and went to stand behind Sam, who was admiring a decorative vase, ruffling his hair and earning a “Hey! Jerk,” as a result.

* * *

They drove through that night, and slept in the car for a few hours because they were a little bit behind schedule, and had to start making their way back to Kansas so Sam could get back on time for summer school; he was taking extra classes to prepare for starting pre-law in the fall. They’d also gone over budget a little bit, and were trying to save on motel money.

So the first time Dean was able to recharge his phone was almost two days after he’d sent the message. Dean had wanted to simply power on until they reached Lawrence, but Sam had forced him to make one final stop at a motel, stating that it would be a damn shame if they all died in a horrible car accident because Dean fell asleep at the wheel. A couple of hours’ delay wouldn’t hurt anyone, he’d said. Damn kid was becoming way too snarky for his own good.

So they’d stopped at a motel in the early afternoon, planning on exploring the town, catching a few hours of sleep and then getting an early start so they’d arrive in Lawrence by noon the next day.

Dean plugged in his phone. Sam had gone to take a walk, and knowing him, that meant he would be gone for at least 45 minutes. When Dean turned on his phone, he was bombarded with a flurry of missed calls and messages from Charlie, Kevin, Gabriel, and Cas.

Frowning, he opened the most recent message, which was from Gabriel.

_Trickster: You’d better not come back Winchester, because if I so much as see your face around campus I will make sure you can never use those fingers of yours again._

Dean was completely stunned and had no idea what Gabriel was talking about. He quickly opened the next message.

_Charlie: I don’t know what’s going on Dean, but this isn’t like you. I thought you loved him? We all did. Hell, we were placing bets on how long it would take for you to ask him to move in with you. But even if your feelings changed, that’s no way to treat him, Dean. He doesn’t deserve that. Do you realize he was crying on my shoulder earlier?! Call me when you get this._

Slowly but surely, somewhere in his mind understanding started to dawn on Dean. He got that they were talking about Cas. And that he’d somehow said something to Cas that had been horribly misconstrued. But the last thing he’d sent to Cas was…

Dean felt sick when it hit him like a ton of bricks what must have happened. He quickly skipped the remaining messages from his friends – from what he could tell from the previews they were all a variation of _“not cool, Dean”_ and _“what the hell, how could you do that to Cas?”_ – to his conversation with Cas. His heart stuttered when he read the last few as of yet unanswered messages from Cas, and he had to fight the bile down.

_Me: Hey, it’s been fun these past few months, but I’m leaving you for someone else. Sorry!_

_Cas: …_

_Cas: Was that supposed to be a joke, Dean?_

_Cas: Dean?!_

_Cas: What’s going on?_

_Cas: Why aren’t you answering me?_

**_Missed call from Cas_ **

_Cas: Dean you’re scaring me._

_Cas: Please respond._

_Cas: Was it something I did? Can we talk about this? Please, Dean, you owe me that at least._

**_Missed call from Cas_ **

**_Missed call from Cas_ **

**_Missed call from Cas_ **

_Cas: I understand. I’m sorry I’ve been such a burden to you._

_Cas: Don’t worry, I won’t contact you again. Goodbye Dean. I hope you’re happy._

Oh Fuck. Shit. Fuck. The constant chanting of swear words was never ending, and Dean had felt his breathing speed up and his vision start to grey around the edges as he felt a panic attack rising up. He managed to prevent it from happening by putting his head between his knees and carefully getting his breathing back to normal.

Having calmed down, he grimly picked up his phone and sent a message to Sam telling him to come back to the motel immediately. When Sam walked into the room fifteen minutes later, he was met with the sight of a nervous, morose Dean pacing a hole in the carpet.

“Finally! There you are! I was about to send out a search party,” Dean said, the words coming out far more harshly than intended.

“What the hell Dean? What’s your problem?” Sam shot back, crossing his arms and scowling at Dean.

“Ah, shit Sammy, I’m –“ Dean ran a hand through his hair and looked contrite. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you – you didn’t do anything wrong. But I did. I fucked up, Sammy, real bad. And now I gotta make it right, but I don’t know if I can.” His words had taken on a desperate tone, enough to alarm Sam.

“Look, Dean, whatever it is, we’ll fix it, okay? Now, judging from the fact you haven’t unpacked your duffel yet, I guess we need to leave?”

Dean nodded, picking up Sam’s bag and throwing it to him before slinging his own duffel over his shoulder.

“Yeah, we gotta go back to KU right now. I have to see Cas, and basically beg for forgiveness, while at the same time dodging Gabriel who has literally threatened to maim my fingers.”

Sam raised his eyebrows and shot Dean a questioning look. “This I gotta hear. Tell me everything on the way back.”

Two minutes later they were trying to break the Impala’s top speed record as they hurried back to Kansas University.

* * *

Dean arrived at one of the KU dorms at half past ten after having dropped off Sam at his parents’ house. Like a coward, he sat in the Impala for a good fifteen more minutes before he gathered enough courage to go and meet his fate.

He remembered just in time to keep a wary eye out for Gabriel – he’d really rather not deal with Cas’s overprotective and vindictive older brother before he’d spoken to Cas first. Luckily, he made it to Cas’s dorm room without incident. He was about to knock when he heard voices inside, indicating that Cas was not alone. The voices were getting louder as he approached the door.

Before Dean knew what he was doing, he’d already retreated around the corner like some kind of criminal afraid of getting caught. When the door opened with a slight creak Dean made a mental note to oil the hinges for Cas next time he got the chance. Then he inwardly face-palmed at how ridiculous he was being. Hell, if he screwed this up he would never have the chance to help Cas with _anything_ anymore. The thought filled him with cold dread, and he balled his fists, finally tuning into the conversation that Cas was having with Gabriel, judging from the voice.

Of course, it had to be Gabriel. Cause Dean couldn’t catch a fucking break these past few days.

“I don’t wanna leave you alone Cassie. You need to be distracted, and you know I am a pro at fun distractions,” Gabriel said, and Dean could almost hear the guy waggle his eyebrows comically.

“Thank you Gabriel, but I think I will just go to bed. I’m exhausted.” He certainly sounded bone-tired, like he hadn’t been sleeping at all these past few days. Dean realized with a pang that he probably hadn’t.

A slight pause. Dean strained to hear what Gabriel would say next.

“Cas…You know I’ll stay if you want me to, right? We can just stay in, eat some junk food and watch bad movies.”

“I know, Gabriel. But I promise you, I genuinely just want to sleep. That sounds like a good plan for tomorrow evening, though,” Cas replied, the warmth in his voice evident. Sometimes Dean forgot how close those two really were, despite the fact that Gabriel purposefully antagonised Cas regularly just to get a rise out of him.

“Okay kiddo, you got it,” Gabriel said easily, and he must’ve ruffled Cas’s hair then, because a second later Dean could hear the sound of a hand being slapped accompanied by Cas’s annoyed “Gabriel, cut it out!”

“See ya tomorrow then,” Gabriel chuckled. A moment later, Cas closed the door, and Gabriel’s footsteps faded slowly away as he walked towards the elevator that would take him back to the ground floor.

Dean waited five minutes just to be sure that Gabriel was definitely gone, and also because he was once again completely losing his nerve. What if Cas just couldn’t forgive him? What if he decided that dating an idiot like Dean really wasn’t worth it. What if –

Dean gathered his resolve. Even if Cas refused to take him back, he owed it to him to make it right. Cas didn’t deserve to feel like he was callously dumped for someone else.

Dean made his way to Cas’s door and knocked – two quiet raps that seemed to echo in the empty, silent corridor. The door opened slowly. “No Gabriel, I haven’t changed my mind in the last five –“ Cas fell silent as he met Dean’s eyes.

“Dean.”

His name had never sounded more _wrong_ coming from Cas’s lips like that – all hurt and sad and surprised as if he truly never expected to see Dean again. It strengthened Dean’s resolve all the more because he _never_ wanted to hear Cas speak his name like that again.

“Cas. Listen, I know what you’re thinking right now but please just give me five – no, two – minutes to explain. This is all so fucked up but please just hear me out,” Dean pleaded, and he couldn’t help but sneak his foot inside the door so Cas couldn’t close it on him. He wasn’t proud of resorting to methods like that, but he was desperate enough to do it anyway.

Unfortunately for Dean, Cas had noticed the gesture, and it seemed to make him angry. “And what if I don’t want to hear it? What if I don’t want to see your face ever again? What will you do – force your way inside my room?” He sounded calm and collected - almost monotone, even - but Dean knew Cas, and he could sense the barely contained anger beneath the surface.

“No!” He exclaimed, appalled, pulling his foot back. “I would never do that!” Cas glanced pointedly at Dean’s foot. “Ok, I’m sorry - you’re right, that was a dick move,” Dean said contritely. “I just really need you to hear me out. Please. I’m begging you, Cas.” And then he simply waited, standing unnaturally still, afraid to piss off Cas even further if he did anything else.

Cas seemed to carefully consider the request, and after what felt like an eternity to Dean, finally opened the door and stepped aside.

“Two minutes. Talk fast.”

Dean quickly entered the room, afraid Cas would change his mind. Cas closed the door behind him and faced him, arms crossed, expression carefully blank and closed off.

“It’s uh, you see, it’s all a big misunderstanding, uh, that is…” Dean winced at the waterfall of nonsense spewing from his mouth, and at the impatient taps of Cas’s finger on one of his elbows. What was he saying? He should just start with the most important thing that he wanted Cas to know, which was…

“I didn’t find someone else!” He forced out breathlessly.

Cas froze, but said nothing, obviously waiting for Dean to clarify his statement.

“It was a joke, okay? Fuck.” Dean rubbed his face, suddenly exhausted. “A really stupid joke that failed and blew up in my face spectacularly.” He had an idea, then, that would save him from having to explain the whole thing. What was it they always said? A picture says more than a thousand words, right?

Dean grabbed his phone, and with a couple of quick taps pulled up the picture that he was _really_ starting to hate with a fiery passion, and would most certainly delete after this entire fiasco was sorted. He held out the picture with an arm stretched in front of him so Cas could see.

“I was gonna send you this picture after I sent you that stupid message. This is a statue of Apollo that Sam and I came across when we were touring some weird ancient Roman and Greek exhibition. That’s why I put ‘divine’ in the message, get it? I thought it was funny at the time…” Okay he really needed to stop talking because he wasn’t making things any better. Certainly not by putting the focus on that terrible pun he’d made.

Cas looked at the picture for a long time. A flurry of emotions flickered in his eyes too quickly for Dean to identify them all separately, but if he had to guess, shock and anger were definitely in there somewhere. At long last, Cas tore his eyes away from the picture on the screen to look at him again.

“Why didn’t I get the picture? And why didn’t you answer any of my messages?” He said. Oh yeah, he was definitely still angry.

“Because my phone died like two seconds after I pressed send, and apparently I wasn’t quick enough,” Dean replied, pocketing his phone. “At the time, I honestly thought you’d received it, that I’d been just in time. I was wrong.”

“Evidently.” Cas’s expression betrayed nothing.

“Cas, I swear to god I’ve just had a run of really shitty luck. We were behind schedule, so that day we decided to just sleep in the car for a few hours before continuing on. So the first time I could turn on my phone again was this afternoon when Sam convinced me to check into a motel because I was falling asleep at the wheel. Then I saw all your messages and I realized what had happened. So I rushed back here because I had to tell you in person that I would never do something like that to you. Ever.”

Dean tried to convey to Cas how much he meant every word. But he knew he had to bring out the big guns for this. Anything less would make him completely unworthy of forgiveness. So he forged on, undeterred by Cas’s continued silence.

“I’m so sorry Cas. I know this was a stupid misunderstanding, but even so I’m so sorry that I hurt you. I can’t imagine how you must’ve have felt, and it’s killing me just thinking about it. You gotta know that I…” He swallowed. “That I love you and that you mean the world to me. In fact -” he may as well put all his cards on the table, it wasn’t like he had anything to lose at this point – “I was gonna ask you to move in with me next semester. I miss you when I’m not around you, Cas. Even on this trip. I had a good time with Sam but I thought about you every day.”

That was it. He’d laid it all out, said everything he wanted to say. Oh, he could spout some more lines about how much in love with Cas he was, but he figured the guy got the gist, and this whole declaration thing was already so far outside his comfort zone he was nearly vibrating out of his skin with nerves. Now it was up to Cas. Dean couldn’t help but close his eyes, too afraid of seeing the rejection in Cas’s.

He opened them again when he felt a warm hand cup his cheek and nearly gasped at the touch. It filled him with a deep need to touch Cas back, to put his arms around him and squeeze the hurt out of both of them.

When he met Cas’s eyes, he was surprised to see the warmth in them, mixed with a hint of – was that _humor_?

“Yes,” Cas said simply.

“Huh?”

“Yes, I’ll move in with you next semester,” he clarified, lightly stroking Dean’s cheek as he snaked his other hand around Dean’s waist. Dean’s arms came up around Cas’s shoulders, giving in to the need to touch.

“Out of this whole shit-storm of a story _that_ is what you decide to focus on?” He really shouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth like that, but Dean couldn’t help himself. Only a few moments ago Cas had still been angry. Could it really be this easy?

Cas shrugged. “I have come to the conclusion that we have tumbled into some kind of romantic comedy scenario, and I thought I’d better follow the script and give us a happy ending.” A small smirk appeared on his face before he leaned in and kissed Dean none too gently. The anger wasn’t _quite_ gone yet, then.

“Oh,” Dean replied when Cas finally pulled back, not quite knowing what to say to that. “Does this mean you forgi-“

Cas interrupted him with a snort “Not a chance, Winchester. You have quite a ways to go for that.” He turned them both towards the bed and pushed Dean onto it before moving to sit next to him.

“I get it Cas. I’ll do anything you want,” Dean said earnestly, finally allowing himself to feel the relief to elation that had formed when Cas said yes to him.

“First of all,” Cas started, “you get to tell our friends about what happened. I expect you to give them the full explanation.”

Dean paled a bit at that. “Gabriel too?”

“Yes Dean, Gabriel too.”

That was going to be an interesting talk. He’d have to make sure to meet up with Gabe in an open space and have an escape plan worked out.

“Did you know he threatened to maim my fingers?”

“Did he now?” Cas replied, eyes sparkling with mirth. “I’ll have to buy him a muffin from that bakery he likes so much the next time I see him, then.”

Sometimes Cas scared him a bit.

“Moving on, I expect you to go on that birdwatching tour with me in two weeks,” Cas continued his list of conditions.

“Ugh, Cas, please, you know that shit ain’t for me. I can’t sit still for fifteen minutes, never mind hours on end,” Dean pleaded. Cas was an avid birdwatcher, and a few months ago he’d seen an ad for a contest in the paper about a birdwatching tour where the person who managed to spot and photograph the most birds could win a new high-quality camera. They’d had several discussions about participating, but Dean had refused to budge, and in the end Cas had registered alone. However, At Cas’s stern look, Dean knew he would be going on that goddamned boring-ass tour.

“Uh, I mean yeah, ‘course I’ll go with you Cas. We’ll beat those other sons of bitches and bring that camera home.”

He wanted to kiss that self-satisfied smirk right off Cas’s lips.

“Anything else?” Dean asked as he slowly moved to close the gap between them.

“Not right now. But I’m sure I’ll think of something else soon.”

“Mkay, can I kiss you now?” Dean murmured, their lips a hair’s breadth away from touching.

Cas responded by smashing their lips together and falling backwards onto the bed, pulling Dean on top of him.

The time for talking was finally over.

* * *

Cas woke him up in the middle of the night to announce that he would also have the final say in how their room would be decorated, and on which side of the bed they’d sleep.

Too tired to even bother to argue, Dean acquiesced and drew Cas close to him. His final thought before he fell back into a deep sleep was that revenge was decidedly _not_ a good look on Cas.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. If you liked it, I would really appreciate it if you left a comment and/or kudo.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [destielonfire](http://destielonfire.tumblr.com).   
> Please come say hi! I’m nice, I promise ;)


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